Get Ready to 3D Forge Your Perfect Gaming Miniatures

I honestly do not think this Kickstarter project needs a lengthy introduction nor an in depth explanation. A photo should suffice to make every tabletop gamer in the world want to sign up and support it, the only question left is how come it has taken so long for someone to come up with a service such as the one offered by the Hero Forge project, for 3D printing strategy gaming miniatures.

Apparently a lot of people agree with me because the first time I looked at this project it was at less than 30% of its $95,000 goal and by the time I finished writing this article, roughly two days later, it surpassed it by 30%. Which also means they unlocked new content offers: Additional Races and Mounted Minis. The next goal, the Sci-Fi Genre Addition at $150,000, will likely have been surpassed by the time you are reading this. We will just have to see what they invent when they get past half a million, as there are over three weeks left to go.

The idea is simple: to use an online video game-like character editor tool to make 3D printable miniatures for tabletop strategy games. As I mentioned before, an image should be more than enough to get the idea about how much more detailed, personalized and unique the 3D printed miniatures can be, especially if compared with the limited (by the numbers as well as by the industrial and technological means) variety of moulded characters.

The team behind this project comprises a perfectly balanced mix of videogame designers, game experts, artists, movie 3D modellers and animators, who have worked on games, video games, movies and cartoons such as Dungeons & Dragons, the Uncharted series (by famed game studios Naughty Dog), Pacific Rim and South Park.

The character design system will be Web based and all these professionals are lending their support to make it as intuitive, precise and customizable as possibile. Gamers can choose race, gender, build and even facial expressions or hairstyles. They will be able to swap armour pieces, weapons, equipment and physical features, even at a 30 millimeter scale. Then again 3D printing works on a micron (and even pico) scale so that is actually not so hard to do.

The miniatures will generally be 3D printed in a variety of high definition white plastic (but other materials, including polished metals will be available) and will not be coloured. This is on the premise that colouring miniatures is one of the activities that table top gamers enjoy the most, as it can add a style that is truly personal. Now even more so as the unique colouring will add to the uniqueness of the miniature’s shape

3D printing miniatures can offer more advantages as well: models can be scaled up and down from the digital version. One thing these spectacular 3D printed miniatures will not be able to do, however, is move. That is probably something to ponder for the future… liquid metal magnetic tabletop gaming anyone?